54 years ago today, the 1967 Abortion Act came into force.

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Spring Fundraising Campaign - Day 3
Dear Supporter,

The recent vote in Parliament to make DIY abortion permanent was a disaster for unborn babies and their mothers.

Abortion levels under the DIY abortion scheme are rocketing.
* Rates are higher now than at any other point since the 1967 Abortion Act came into force on 27^th April 1968 – 54 years ago today.

"Chemical" abortions at home are fast replacing traditional "surgical" methods like vacuum aspiration, which require supervision in a clinical setting.

* In 2020, DIY abortions grew quickly to account for almost half (47%) of all abortions in England and Wales (despite only being available from April of that year). The percentage for Scotland was higher still – a shocking 97%.

More women and girls are ending up in hospital thanks to DIY abortions.

* Emergency ambulance call outs for complications arising from abortion pills were three times higher for women who took abortion pills at home compared to those who had taken them at an abortion facility.

An incredibly high proportion of abortions are the result of some level of coercion from a partner, parent, employer or another third-party – and NOT the “choice” of the woman involved.

* Researchers say that a staggering “1-in-4” abortions occur because of pressure from others. This could be just the tip of the iceberg.

Sadly, the shocking news of the now-permanent DIY abortion policy is not the only disturbing development that we have had to contend with in the first part of this year.

Disappointing development In Northern Ireland

In March 2021, the UK Government issued new regulations giving the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland the power to overrule political opposition and force mass abortion on the Province.

Westminster’s radical new law permits abortion under any circumstances up to 12-weeks, and up to 24-weeks when there is “a risk to a woman’s physical or mental health”.

Given how widely “risk” may be interpreted by doctors, abortion is available de facto “on demand” up to 24 weeks, where previously abortions were permitted in very few instances.

For example, in the 2019-2020 period – the last year of the old law – abortions in Northern Ireland numbered “just” 22.

Of course, even one abortion is a terrible tragedy.

But the Secretary of State wants the health service in the Province to provide for 6,000 abortions every year.

As part of the Good Friday Agreement* a devolution settlement was agreed which gave the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont power to decide abortion law for itself.

(*A treaty signed by the governments of the UK, the Irish Republic and the Northern Ireland political parties designed to protect life and keep the peace in the Province after 30 violent years of the Troubles.)

When the UK Government introduced The Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2021 to side-line local pro-life politicians, SPUC began legal proceedings to prevent Ministers from being forced to implement London’s extremist abortion agenda.

It came as a major blow, then, when on 8th February 2022, Mr Justice Colton ruled that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, acted lawfully when he directed Ministers to implement the abortion regulations.

The Colton ruling is another disaster for unborn babies.

The ruling means that Mr Lewis can amend or repeal any law in Northern Ireland he sees as incompatible with the abortion “recommendations” contained in the United Nations' CEDAW
Report.

He is under no obligation to consult the public or listen to their elected representatives.

The CEDAW report

CEDAW stands for the: Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

A 2018 UN CEDAW Report lies at the heart of the abortion scandal affecting Northern Ireland today.

Justice Colton’s February ruling applies to all “recommendations” contained in paragraphs 85 and 86 of the 2018 (CEDAW) Report.

Attack on Christian culture

At its heart, the Report is a thinly veiled attack on Northern Ireland’s predominantly Christian heritage, which esteems human life at all its stages.

The Report frowns on Northern Ireland's t
raditionally Christian value system and lays the blame for what it describes as the “discrimination” of women in the Province squarely at the door of the Christian religion, referring to the:

“…prevalence of discriminatory gender stereotypes on women's role as mothers… rooted in culture and religion and the non-existence of policy to counter existing negative stereotypes.”

Civil liberties struck down

The list of anti-life, anti-family and anti-democratic “recommendations” that CEDAW calls upon the UK Government to implement include:
1. Providing abortion “information” and “counselling”

Schools, hospitals, health clinics and the doctors and nurses who work in them, will be forced to signpost children to abortion centres.

Parents CANNOT opt their children out regardless of the school’s religious ethos.

Furthermore, the Gillick Ruling (1985) also means that there is no requirement that parents be informed if their underage daughter is seeking an abortion.


2. Ensuring “affordability and accessibility” for sexual health services at hospitals, clinics and pharmacies

This has serious implications for healthcare professionals.

The right to conscientious objection only applies to direct participation in an abortion. But that means medical personnel such as nurses, midwives and pharmacists could well be required to get involved and facilitate abortions at some point in the chain.

3. Making sex education a “compulsory curriculum component” and ensuring lessons are “scientifically accurate.”

But irrefutable facts that show abortion kills a living, growing human person risk being replaced by “sanitised” and politically correct “truths” that mask scientific reality.

Groups like SPUC could be refused entry into classrooms, blocking the only effective antidote against unbridled abortion brainwashing of our children and grandchildren in schools.

4. “Protect[ing]” women from “harassment by anti-abortion protestors by investigating complaints, prosecuting and punishing perpetrators.”

This is the clearest signal yet that our opponents want peaceful pro-life prayer vigils and demonstrations outlawed and the participants criminalised, even imprisoned.


Pro-lifers stripped of basic democratic rights

The Colton ruling also gives impetus to our opponents at Stormont.

In March, a Bill tabled by Green Party leader, Clare Bailey, which aimed to ban pro-lifers from gathering at abortion facilities, was passed into law by 55 votes to 29.

Not only does the new law snuff out the democratic right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression, but by preventing pro-life counsellors to operate it denies a woman the offer of eleventh-hour help to keep her baby.

SPUC’s Executive Committee has sanctioned an appeal against the Colton judgement as it will not abandon Northern Ireland’s babies

This entails hiring the best legal minds to represent unborn children in court and we believe that we have that in former NI Attorney General and constitutional law expert, John Larkin QC.

Our legal team estimate that the cost of mounting the appeal will be in the region of £82,000.
Will you give £25 today to defend babies at the Belfast Court of Appeal?
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Every round of this hard-fought court battle to hold back a flood of abortion in Northern Ireland has been funded by people, like you.

It has to be that way because unlike wealthy abortion providers like BPAS - who are responsible for the senseless deaths of tens of thousands of innocent babies every year in the UK - SPUC does not receive a penny in Government grants (nor Lottery money).

Every pound that we raise comes from individuals like you who care deeply about protecting babies and their mothers.
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In fact, SPUC’s amazing donors have made the Society the leading pro-life group in Britain for the legal defence of unborn children.

Who knows how many precious lives have been saved in Northern Ireland because of multiple SPUC legal actions - which stretch back to 2009 - by delaying UK-style abortion law crossing the Irish Sea.

Whatever the final outcome, you can be proud of the part that you have played in making this appeal possible and helping to save vulnerable babies (and their mothers) from the dreadful scourge of abortion.

Yours in defence of life,
John Deighan
Chief Executive
P.S. Justice Colton’s insistence that the UK Government’s UN-ascribed abortion regulations are enforced is a slap in the face for devolution and democracy.

The Northern Ireland people have in the past clearly demonstrated their firm opposition to liberal abortion:
* In a 2019 Government consultation, 79% of submissions received from Northern Ireland residents opposed the expansion of any abortion provision in Northern Ireland beyond that which was currently permitted

* Similarly, in 2016, a majority of Stormont representatives voted to maintain the previous abortion law.

As we mark the 54th anniversary of a law which has claimed the lives of 9,898,425 unborn babies, SPUC's Court of Appeal case is an opportunity to right wrongs and save precious babies' lives.
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